


so i kind of have a crush on you (maybe)

by landeskogs



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Philadelphia Flyers, a tiny bit of blood because nolan isn’t good at using words so he punches a wall, make that besties to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-09-19 18:37:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/landeskogs/pseuds/landeskogs
Summary: “Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” Nolan concludes, because hey, he is a totally responsible adult.Who is head over heels for his best friend and teammate.





	1. Chapter 1

“You bought all of these groceries and you forgot my rice pudding?” 

“How was I supposed to know you wanted rice pudding if you didn’t tell me, Teeks?”

“We’re best friends. You should know this by now Nollie,” Travis sighs. 

Nolan frowns at the nickname. 

“Next time, tell me and I'll get it for you,” Nolan mumbles, opening the fridge and throwing out pizza that’s at least a month old. 

“Good, because there’s only one thing I like more than rice pudding,” Travis chuckles. 

“Aww, is it me?” Nolan chirps. 

“You wish, Nollie,” Travis snipes back, but wraps his arms around Nolan’s shoulders nonetheless. 

“So it’s not me?” Nolan fake-pouts, the one that gets Travis every time. 

“What? I mean, of course – fuck you!” Travis stutters when he sees Nolan’s smile. 

“Anytime, Teeks,” Nolan laughs back, not thinking about his comment until it’s out in the room. 

“Oh,” Travis says softly, his cheeks turning a light pink. 

It didn’t occur to either of them that they were still close to each other, with only a few centimeters between their chests. 

“Um,” Nolan says at the same time Travis says, “We should talk about this.” 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” Nolan concludes, because hey, he is a  _totally_  responsible adult. 

Who is head over heels for his best friend and teammate. 

They move to the couch, sitting side by side, and Nolan has no idea what to do with his hands. Which are completely useless in this situation. 

“So,” Travis starts, unsure of how to begin this type of conversation. “I um. I’ve had, like, the biggest crush on you. Since like, juniors, man.” 

“Same,” Nolan says quietly. 

“Hey, you can’t just ‘same’ me, Nollie,” Travis retorts, and Nolan definitely doesn’t preen at the nickname. 

Definitely. 

“Dude,” Nolan says, suddenly serious. “We need to, like, boyfriend this shit up right now.” 

“Boyfriend this shit?” Travis wheezes out. “What a romantic!”

“Shut up, I’m trying!” Nolan laughs back. 

“Okay, so stop me if this is the wrong thing,” Travis says. 

He climbs on top of Nolan’s lap, and then he’s leaning down, and connecting his lips with Nolan’s, and it’s  _perfect._ Not like in the movies, where there’s fireworks in the background. Nolan feels like someone lit him up from the inside. He kisses with more force, and starts rutting into Travis, straddling him so that he can’t move from his position. He can feel Travis getting needy too, whimpering into the kisses. 

The door slams suddenly, causing Nolan to bonk his nose on Travis’ forehead and hiss in pain. Travis, on the other hand, jumps so high he lands on the floor with a thud. 

Ivan's standing there, jaw agape, looking like someone has hooks in his mouth. 

“What the fuck!” he shrieks and starts rubbing his eyes furiously. “I am never going to be able to unsee that.” 

“Prov, um, what are you doing here?” Travis asks, and  _oh,_  his voice sounds like gravel. 

“I left my hoodie here,” Ivan says, squinting. “But I can come back another time, if I'm – interrupting.” 

“No, no, we should talk about this. More,” Nolan stops him. 

“Yeah. So we never actually came out to each other?” Travis says, almost like a question. 

“We told each other we liked each other and started kissing.” 

Ivan stood there, almost cross-eyed. 

“You two are very dumb,” he deadpans. After a beat of silence, he added, “Well? Which one of you is the gay one?” 

“That’d be me,” Nolan supplies, sheepishly. 

“I’m bi?” Travis almost asks. “I don’t really know yet.” 

“That’s okay, we can figure it out together,” Nolan smiles, seeing something light up in Travis’ eyes. 

“Okay, okay. That's enough PDA for me. I'm leaving.” 

Ivan grabs his hoodie from the chair and stalks out of the room, leaving the two of them alone again. 

“So,” Nolan says dumbly, glancing at Travis, who’s still on the floor. 

“So,” Travis repeats, smiling. 

Nothing else left to say, Travis surges up and kisses Nolan sweetly, and loudly, and it’s perfect. Nothing gets better than this-

“OH MY GOD. I’M STILL HERE.” 

Travis starts laughing against Nolan’s mouth, enticing him to start laughing too, and they end up in a pile of tangled limbs and giggles. 

When he’s sure Ivan’s slammed the door shut, Nolan hums, “You’re cute.” 

“Aw, I'm cute?” Travis mimics. “How sweet. You're pretty cute yourself.” 

“Shut up,’ Nolan giggles, pressing a kiss to his temple.

“So, should we continue?” Travis smirks, pressing his knuckles against Nolan’s abs. 

Nolan grunts in response, enticing a giggle from Travis. 

And then,  _hey._ Nolan literally picks Travis up and carries him to the bedroom. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Look. All I'm saying is that you guys need a backup plan in case someone finds out about you two. Or worse, they see the giant hickey on your neck.” 
> 
> “Yeah, and getting bitten by a fish is the best you could come up with?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am still a bitter hockey fan so i wrote this

“Look. All I'm saying is that you guys need a backup plan in case someone finds out about you two. Or worse, they see the giant hickey on your neck.”

“Yeah, and getting bitten by a  _fish_  is the best you could come up with?” 

Ivan glowers at Travis from where he’s sitting. 

“You love hunting! It's the only thing that makes sense!”

“Fish don’t even bite!” Travis yells, throwing his arms up in disgust. 

“Actually, there’s a type of fish called the bluefish that has been known to-” 

“O-kay!” Nolan interjects loudly. “That’s enough of that. It's inevitable that one of the guys will see it at practice. Just play it off as best you can until we have a time and place to tell them.”

“Fine,” both Ivan and Travis grumble at the same time, and Nolan has to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing. 

“Great,” he claps his hands together. “Let’s go, I don’t want to be late.”

He tunes in and out of their arguing in the car, hearing only the bare minimum of sentences. At one point he hears “electric eel” come out of Ivan’s mouth. 

The locker room is mostly quiet when the three of them walk in. 

Suspiciously quiet. 

“Where have you guys been?” Stolie breaks the silence. “You’ve been MIA since before the Christmas break.”

“Yeah,” Claude cuts in. “We were  _supp_ _osed_ to have a get-together at my house on the 26th.”

Nolan doesn’t need a mirror to see the blush rising on his face. 

“I had a panic attack,” Travis blurts out, eyes wide. 

Nolan whirls around at him incredulously, giving him a confused stare. 

“I had a panic attack, and I called Patty to help me with it.”

The whole locker room looks to him, and with nothing else to do, he nods. 

The team spurs back into action, aggressively stripping and putting on gear. 

“Phew, TK,” Jake wolf-whistles, eyeing the large mark on Travis’ neck. “You really got some, eh?” 

“Oh, uh,” Travis stammers. 

He turns to Nolan, who shrugs. 

“Do it,” he mouths back. 

Instead of actually telling the team in an orderly fashion, like he anticipated, Travis does things his way. 

As per usual. 

Travis is across the room in less than two seconds and basically jumps onto Nolan, brings his arms around the other man’s neck and kisses him, hard. 

Nolan makes a noise he isn’t proud of and Travis pulls back, laughing. 

“You sly fucker,” Nolan says after he’s done gaping. 

“Someone tell me I’m not the only one who just saw that,” Sanheim says from his stall. 

“I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who didn’t see that,” James snarks back.

“What?”

“They’ve been lovey-dovey since Pats was drafted.”

“Hey,” Travis protests, indignant, “We literally came out to each other a week ago.” 

“No you didn’t, _I_ came out for you,” Ivan points out, rolling his eyes. 

“What does that even mean?” Nolan yells.

“Doesn’t matter. Point is, you two were lovesick to the point where you were basically vomiting heart emojis.”

“We were not,” Travis retorts. 

“TK, bud, we’ve all seen it,” Claude chuckles. 

“Ok, so which one of you -”

“It’s me!” Nolan cuts Carter off. “I’m the gay one, for the love of god.”

“Um,” Carter turns red. “I was gonna ask who made the first move.” 

“Oh.” 

Ivan, the fucker, doesn’t have the decency to hide his horse-like laugh.

Travis buries his face in the crook of Nolan’s neck in embarrassment, so naturally, Nolan strokes a hand through his hair. 

Boyfriend material. 

“Hey no, that’s a fine,” James shouts, waving his pen in the air. 

“Where in the hell did you get a pen and paper?” Nolan asks, not moving his hand from Travis’ hair. 

“Not important,” James retorts. “This is expensive. PDA is at least two hundred bucks.”

Travis squawks in argument and accidentally knees Nolan in a bad spot. He lets out a pain-filled grunt.

“Oh shit, sorry babe,” Travis apologizes. 

“Hey,” Wayne shouts from his stall. “Maybe you can kiss it better.”

Nolan feels his blush rising fast and Travis has the decency to look sheepish. 

“Point is,” Claude breaks the silence, “we’re glad and honored you told us. We've got your backs; no need to worry about that.” 

Nolan smiles warmly. 

“Get that shit-eating grin out of here and put your gear on.”

“I got it!” Travis yells, and leans in to kiss the smile right off his face. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hurt flashes across Nolan’s face before it’s replaced with a blank, cold expression. 
> 
> “Fine,” he deadpans. “I’ll be with G. Come find me when you’re ready to talk. Or don’t.” 
> 
> “Nol,” Travis tries, but the door slams before he can get anything else out. 
> 
> “Fuck,” he mutters to himself, and picks up the phone to dial a number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so i lied i'm just gonna keep adding on to this

So the thing is, Travis intended to keep this all to himself and the team. Like, yeah, he wanted to tell people eventually, but it was too soon for him to go all public about his personal life. 

“Trav, we gotta tell people eventually.”

Travis inwardly sighs, “I know Nol, it’s just too soon.”

“Too soon? We've been in this relationship for six months, and it’s too soon?” Nolan laughs incredulously. “I don’t get why this is such a big idea.” 

“Nolan, please don’t start now,” he pleads. 

“Start what? I’m not starting anything. You’re the one who won’t give me any clue as to why you don’t want to tell people.”

“I’m just not ready yet,” Travis snaps back, sitting up. “I can’t do it right now.” 

“Why’s now any different than any other time?” Nolan snarks, raising his voice a little. “Why won’t you just tell me what’s going on with you?” 

“It’s not that simple,” Travis says, trying to stay calm. 

“No, it  _is_ that simple!” Nolan yells. 

“Why can’t you just respect the fact that I don’t need this right now?” Travis shouts, regretting the words instantly. 

Hurt flashes across Nolan’s face before it’s replaced with a blank, cold expression. 

“Fine,” he deadpans. “I’ll be with G. Come find me when you’re ready to talk. Or don’t.” 

“Nol,” Travis tries, but the door slams before he can get anything else out. 

“Fuck,” he mutters to himself, and picks up the phone to dial a number. 

“Hello?” Lawson speaks through the speaker. 

“Hey Law, uh, is this a bad time, ‘cause I know it’s late in Arizona, and it can wait-” 

“Woah, Trav, slow down,” Lawson chuckles. “I’m fine. What's up?”

“I- I think I fucked up, Law,” he sniffs. 

“Why?” There’s some shifting on the other end of the line, like Lawson is sitting up.

“Uh, Nolan and I had a bit of a fight,” Travis says, trying to keep his voice levelled. 

“You and Nolan? You two fight all the time.”

“Yeah, but it’s different this time.”

“Different how?” 

“This time,” Travis sighs, “this time it actually  _means_  something.” 

“What does that –  _oh,”_  Lawson says, putting the pieces together in his head. 

“Yeah.”

“Well, what happened?” There’s more shifting on the line, and a door closing, so Travis assumes Lawson moved somewhere more private. 

“He’s always been talking about telling people we’re dating, right? And – don't get me wrong, I do want to tell people, but – it's just too soon for me, you know? After all the shit that’s happened in the past, I don’t want to make the same mistake again.”

“Okay, yeah,” Lawson ponders. “You guys are pretty early in this relationship, but I don’t see why it’s a problem? What mistakes are you talking about?”

And that, he forgot he hadn’t told Lawson yet. 

“Oh,” Travis says, and he’s thankful that Lawson can’t see the way his eyes are quick to water. 

“Hey man, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No, no, I probably should, considering I haven’t actually talked to anyone about this.”

“Okay. I'm listening,” Lawson says. 

“Alright. So, I had a pretty good feeling that I, well – wasn't totally, one hundred percent straight, like a few years ago? Like, our draft year, actually, so that made things really fucking weird, because it got me thinking. Like, some of the draft members were hot? Anyway, I brought it up with my parents the day after the draft.” 

Travis takes a breath after that. He hadn’t actually said this part out loud to anyone but himself. Lawson makes an encouraging noise over the phone. 

“So, I really didn’t know how to tell them, so I kind of just blurted, ‘hey, I'm not straight?’ And, like, my dad didn’t even say anything, he just left. So I figured, you know, he needed to let it sink in?”

His voice goes shaky and the tears start to spill over, and he has to take a minute before he can speak again. 

“So my dad just left, and my mom sat there for a good ten minutes. And then she told me to get out. And naturally, I asked why, and she told me that if I couldn’t be ‘normal’” - he makes air quotes, even though Lawson can’t see him - “then I wasn’t welcome in the family anymore.

“I haven’t spoken to them since.”

Travis hates the way his voice breaks with every tear-soaked word that spills out of his mouth. He hates the silence on the phone even more. 

“Trav, that’s - I don’t even know what to say.”

“That’s fine,” Travis says, “it’s kind of better without them, you know? Like, I don’t have anyone to hold me back anymore.”

“Okay, I don’t want to switch topics on you, but what else happened with Nolan?” Lawson speaks quietly. 

“Yeah, I almost forgot,” Travis chuckles bitterly. “He started getting angry, asking why I didn’t want to tell people, and I snapped at him.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him to respect the fact that I didn’t need this right now,” he responds guiltily. “’This’ being our relationship. I don’t even know why I said it. I can’t live without him.” 

“You have to talk to him, you know,” Lawson says, voice firm. 

“I know, but he’s with Claude, and he probably said what happened, and Claude is gonna hate me-” 

“Travis, no one hates you,” Lawson sighs, the reception a little choppy. “I have to go, Stromer’s pissed at me for locking him out of the bathroom. But you gotta get your ass over there, apologize, and tell him why you don’t want to tell people right away.”

Travis sighs and draws a hand over his face. “Thanks, man, I'll talk to you soon.”

“Let me know how it goes,” comes the response, and the line goes dead. 

-0-

He barely gets to knock two times before Claude opens the door. 

“Look, I know you’re mad, but I need to talk to Nolan,” he says, disregarding a greeting. 

“I’ll be at Jake’s,” Claude says, stepping out of the apartment. 

Travis walks in and Nolan looks miserable, his face all red and puffy, his eyes red. 

“Nol,” he says softly. 

His head snaps up, the same cold expression written on it from before. 

“I-” Travis’ voice breaks. “Nol, I'm so-”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence before Nolan is hauling him into a bone-crushing hug. 

“I’m so sorry, Travie,” Nolan rushes out. “I’m such a dickhead.”

“What? No, Nol, no you’re not,” Travis stutters. “I came here to apologize. To you.”

“But, why? I crossed the line, and I'm an asshole.”

“Sure, you may be an asshole, but I should’ve told you why I'm so reluctant to tell people.”

Travis proceeds to tell him everything about his parents, and at the end of the story, Nolan’s blue eyes are electric, in a way he’s only seen on the ice when they’re down by a goal. 

“I’ll kill them,” he mutters, and Travis would’ve missed it if he didn’t speak the language that is incoherent mumbling. He lets out a chuckle. 

“No, I'm serious,” Nolan says louder. “I’ll fucking kill them. Both of them.”

And that,  _that_  unwinds a knot in his core that he didn’t know rested there, bound tight. 

“I love you,” Travis sighs, then freezes. “Uh, I mean-”

“Really?” Nolan says, beaming. “You mean that?” 

“Of course I mean that, Nol, it’s  _you_.”

The smile he gets in return gives him a certain hope that everything would be alright. 

As if that wasn’t enough, the chaste kiss placed on the side of his mouth was  _definitely_  reassuring.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s going on? Why is everyone so quiet? Did Gritty finally catch your tongue?” Nolan tries to joke, but it falls flat. 
> 
> “No,” Claude responds, looking oddly guilty. “Did you, uh, check your phone at all today? Er, last night?” 
> 
> Both men shake their heads. “We slept late and just got dressed to leave.” 
> 
> “You, um, you might want to do that,” Wayne stutters. “Check the phones, I mean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long delay, i had no motivation but i do now.

The locker room is eerily quiet when they walk in, all heads snapping up at the sound of the door. 

“Uh,” Travis winces. “Hey guys?”

A couple of grunts sounded in response. 

“What’s going on? Why is everyone so quiet? Did Gritty finally catch your tongue?” Nolan tries to joke, but it falls flat. 

“No,” Claude responds, looking oddly guilty. “Did you, uh, check your phone at all today? Er, last night?”

Both men shake their heads. “We slept late and just got dressed to leave.”

“You, um, you might want to do that,” Wayne stutters. “Check the phones, I mean.” 

Travis pulls out his phone, powering it on. 

The amount of notifications that explode his phone shouldn’t shock him (he has very annoying friends), and yet, it does. One catches his eye:

_Flyers’ Nolan Patrick and Travis Konecny, gay?_

He can feel Nolan’s breathing speed up beside him. Looking up, he sees the same electric blue eyes he knows he has himself. 

“What - how -”

Travis feels the tears running down his face and he feels his feet moving before his brain can tell him to stop. 

Nolan doesn’t try to stop him.

“Which one of you – who -”

Finally looking up from his feet, nothing but anger in his heart, he speaks up.

“Who the hell told anyone?”

“None of us did, Nolan-” 

“No,” Nolan yells. “It was fucking one of you, because we didn’t tell anyone else, and you all talked to the media this morning -”

He hears a bunch of swearing and insults come out of his mouth and he  _knows_  he should shut up before he says something he’ll regret, but all that’s running through his head is  _Travis_ _Travis_ _Travis_ _,_ and that alone fuels his hate fire to another level. 

Without realizing it his feet are moving toward his stall and he’s throwing stuff on the floor, his mouth running on and on. And then his fists are connecting with the side of the wall, and he can vaguely hear someone yelling at him to stop, that he’ll break his hands, and blah blah  _bla_ _h_ _._

The only thing he registers is the snap of what he hopes is wood and the sound it makes when it falls on the floor. 

He can feel the drip of blood on his knuckles, he  _can_ , but it doesn’t matter, because Travis is somewhere, probably feeling like shit, and he’s not with him, and-

“Woah, woah, slow down!” Claude yells, shaking his shoulders. 

“I - I need to find him,” he says helplessly, sagging in defeat. 

“He went by the janitor closet,” Carter speaks up. “He wasn’t crying, but he looked close to it.”

Without a word, Nolan starts out toward the closet with a gut-wrenching weight in his chest. 

-0-

Walking blindly through the halls, he searches for the janitor’s closet, which is dumb, because this is his own fucking arena-

“Travis?” he whispers when he thinks he hears a sniffle. 

Opening a small wooden door, he can hear clambering and a few metal cans falling. 

“Hey, hey, it’s just me,” Nolan says when Travis jumps back and tries to hide. 

“Oh god,” Travis grits out, voice breaking. “Oh god, what are we going to do?”

“Oh, Trav,” Nolan sighs, carding his hands through Travis’s hair. “We can’t exactly hide from this.”

“But- but what if people hate us? Or we’re forced to stop playing, or we  _do_  keep playing, and people make fun of us-”

“Hey, slow down,” Nolan says, gently tugging on his hair. “I can’t guarantee that everyone will be okay with us, and I can’t guarantee that the whole organization will be happy that this got out, and I can’t guarantee that we won’t get made fun of. But I can tell you that I don’t care what people say, I don’t care if we have to leave Philly. We can play somewhere else, or we can play in the AHL, or the WHL or the OHL, or – or somewhere, it doesn’t matter. Trav, the only thing that matters is  _us._ You and me, Travis, that’s all that matters. As long as I’m with you, I'm happy.”

Burying his face in Nolan’s neck, Travis takes a deep breath and sighs, “What do we tell the media?”

“We tell them the truth,” Nolan answers when the tears stop flowing down Travis’s face. “We let them know that we’re sticking together, and we’ll make it through this.”

The faintest  _okay_  flows over his neck and he lets out a sigh of relief. 

“Hey, what did you do to your hand?”

“Oh,” Nolan says dumbly, and looks at his hand for the first time. It's red and there’s dried blood on his knuckle. “I, um. May or may not have punched a wall?”

“Nolan James Patrick. I have told you multiple times to use your words and not your fists,” Travis scolds, the remnants of a smile playing out on his face. 

“I think I might have scarred the guys,” he chuckles softly. 

“Well, go un-scar them. We should probably talk to them.”

-0-

“Hey, uh,” Nolan winces when every head turns to him. “Sorry for-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Claude cuts him off. “We’d all do the same thing if we were you.”

“Well. Still sorry,” he says, offering a small smile. 

“So, are you gonna talk to the media?”

“Yeah,” Travis pipes up. “It’s not like we can exactly hide from it. It's kind of obvious.”

“Well, okay, ‘cause they’ve been camped out here since the end of practice. I'm honestly scared they’ll start to riot.”

“That’s... nice,” Nolan mumbles. “Where exactly?”

The entirety of the room points to the main doors, where a couple of boom mics and tripods are visible. 

“Yeah, okay. We can do this,” Nolan says to someone, he’s not sure who, and grabs Travis’ hand. 

-0-

_Philadelphia Flyers’ forwards Nolan Patrick and Travis Konecny sat down with our press team earlier to discuss their status and the social media leaking. Both men were present and seemed happy when they sat down._

_“So, I'm sure this has been a bit of a roller coaster ride for the both of you, so I'll start out simple: can you tell us what’s actually going on?”_

_Patrick and Konecny laughed quietly at each other before answering the reporter’s question._

_“We’re dating, for sure,” Konecny said. He made sure to include that they were “one hundred percent committed, not giving up any time soon.”_

_“Are you aware of who leaked the information?”_

_Both Patrick and Konecny were unaware of who sent out the tweets and leaked their statuses. “It honestly doesn’t matter,” Patrick said. “Whoever it was obviously has some tension between us and decided to try and settle it this way.”_

_When asked who else previously knew about their relationship, Konecny looked sheepish. “It’s actually kind of embarrassing,” he admitted. “I’m honestly shocked the whole world didn’t know.”_

_“How long have you been dating?”_

_“A little over six months,” Patrick answered with a smile. “Although we’ve been basically dating for my entire career with the Flyers, but neither of us knew it.”_

_The press really didn’t have many questions, but Patrick and Konecny were more than happy in the room. They even sealed the outing with a bow when they kissed for the first time on camera._

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah... this happened
> 
> https://mitchmarnerss.tumblr.com/


End file.
